The real wager” “

“Thinking of the family in the context of European citizenship means warning of the dangers of forms of perversion and deviance in order to recall the sense of responsible citizenship” since “being a citizen means concerning oneself with the common good and accepting one’s own responsibility towards the authority of the law”. The law also regulates the family as an institution, “sacred reality, and a fundamental element of social life”. PAUL MOREAU, professor of philosopher at the Catholic University of Lyon (France), is convinced of this. Writing in the last number of the Italian monthly “Famiglia oggi”, which is also the organ of the International Centre of Family Studies (ICFS), Moreau analyses the character and role of the family in the 25-member Europe. AT THE SERVICE OF THE COMMON GOOD. “Thinking of the role of the family in an enlarged Europe – begins Moreau – means in the first place recognizing the great diversity of the philosophic conceptions that underlie family law in the various nations that form part of it”, since “starting out from the common heritage of Christianity, there is a great gap between some individualistic conceptions, that are increasingly gaining ground, and community-based conceptions of the family of which, for example, Poland is a proponent”. Significant in this regard – says Moreau – is the tendency, “present also in the Charter of the Fundamental Rights of the European Union (Nice, 7-9 December 2000)”, to consider the family as an “‘association’ that serves individual interests” rather than “the common good”. This position, remarks the philosopher, “contrasts with the Charter of Rights of the Family, proclaimed by the Holy See in 1983, in which the family is also present as a legal entity”. GAMBLE FOR EUROPE. Nonetheless, according to Moreau, the family is “the real gamble of citizenship for Europe” provided it is considered as a “form of life at the service of the common good” and as an “institution of society with full rights. Moreau therefore rejects a kind of “family life that, in terms both of the formation of the couple and access to parenthood”, seems “optional”, and whose “forms and contents depend on the good will of each of its members”. He also rejects a family law that is “merely the formalization of the subjective rights of its members”. Since the family “is always linked to a particular society – argues the French philosopher – it must always be regulated by external laws that come from society” itself; the “political dimension” that belongs to it as an institution is the real wager of citizenship. It means that the family “involves less rights than duties and that the citizen transcends the individual man and concerns himself with the common good” in his role as “parent and founder of the family”, as well as “participant in the formulation of the laws”. WHAT FAMILY LAW and what family policy should there be in secular societies? That is the question posed by Moreau; a “difficult question”, he admits, because “a secular conception should be balanced especially with regard to marriage”, through which the spouses “recognize the obligations written in the Civil Code” in terms of “mutual aid, assistance and fidelity, and of the education of children”. Yet, if “it can represent the best of things”, the family “can also be a place of violence, not only as a consequence of grave economic or psychological difficulties that afflict the parents, but also for cultural reasons”. In Moreau’s view, “it would not be reasonable to turn our back on the principle of divorce, now accepted by all European legislations. But divorce – he underlines – cannot be reduced to a mere administrative act; we need to defend the principle according to which it is a third person, the judge, who in the name of the law, pronounces the divorce and apportions liabilities and responsibilities. That means that the law is not indifferent to the breakdown of an institution that is invaluable for the common good and the good of persons, for the weaker spouse and especially for the children”. RAISING OUR GUARD. More generally, in Moreau’s view, “the States that compose the European Community must remains faithful not only to the religious dimension of their heritage, but also to the more properly philosophic dimension which is that of democracy as a system for the safeguard of the common interest, without which there would be neither republic, nor real citizenship”. That means that we need to “raise our guard”, and leave scope for anthropology to “seek the meaning of human life”. We need a perspective according to which “the family deserves to be considered a sacred reality, namely, in the anthropological sense, and an indispensable element because fundamental for social life. That involves, in philosophic terms, the need to conceive the family as an institution regulated by the law, which cannot be satisfied just with endorsing trends in social customs and mentalities”.